The following document is drawn from the Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, which covers the pontificates of Clement XI (1700–1721) and Innocent XIII (1721–1724). After a comprehensive search of all 122,000 lines for every term associated with Jews — including Iudaei, Hebraei, synagoga, neophyti, iudaizantes, conversi, and all related vocabulary — the volume contains three documents of substantive importance for the history of papal legislation concerning Jews.
The first (Constitution LXI, 1704) is a significant legislative document by Clement XI confirming and expanding Paul III’s constitution on privileges for neophytes (converts from Judaism and other non-Christian religions), while adding provisions renewing prohibitions on Jews disinheriting converted relatives and renewing the obligation of weekly conversion sermons. The second (Constitution CLXIII, 1712) is a confirmation of the church and college of Santa Maria in Montibus in Rome for the Congregation of Pious Workers, which incidentally records the full history and constitution of the House of Catechumens and College of Neophytes — Roman institutions dedicated to housing and educating adult Jews and Muslims during and after conversion to Christianity. The third (Constitution XLIV of Innocent XIII, 1724) confirms and strengthens the Clement VIII prohibition on Jews in the papal territories of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin trading in new goods, explicitly extending the prohibition to cover silk.
The volume also contains two passages involving Jews that are not legislative. A hagiographic narrative in a 1712 document recounts that several Hebrews, including a prominent archsynagogue named Elijah, converted to Christianity under the influence of Pius V’s personal holiness — a standard trope of Counter-Reformation hagiography. Proposition LXIII among the 101 condemned Jansenist theses of Quesnel (Unigenitus, 1713) uses the word iudaeus as a theological comparator: “A baptized person is still under the law like a Jew, if he does not fulfill the law, or fulfills it only out of fear” — this is a condemnation of Jansenist soteriology, not Jewish legislation. Both incidental passages are noted but not translated in full.
I. Pope Clement XI — Confirmatur et ampliatur constitutio Pauli III de privilegiis neophytorum quoad bona temporalia, cum quibusdam ordinationibus: The Constitution of Paul III on the Privileges of Neophytes Regarding Temporal Goods Is Confirmed and Expanded, with Certain Ordinances (March 11, 1704)
Constitution LXI. Clement XI, year IV. Dated at Rome, at St. Peter’s, under the Fisherman’s Ring, March 11 (V idus Martii), 1704, pontificate year IV. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, pp. 108–113.
Summary of structure
Constitution LXI is organized around the confirmation of Paul III’s original 1542 constitution granting temporal privileges to neophyti — persons newly converted to Christianity from Judaism, Islam, or paganism. It then adds several provisions specific to the situation of Jews in Catholic territories. The document begins with an extended preamble reflecting on the theology of conversion and the Church’s pastoral duty toward the recently converted, then incorporates the text of Paul III’s original constitution, then adds clarificatory and amplificatory provisions, and concludes with an instruction to all bishops in dioceses where Jews reside to ensure the provisions are publicly announced to the Jewish community annually.
Preamble
Clement, bishop, servant of the servants of God, to perpetual memory of the matter.
Attending ceaselessly to the propagation of the Christian faith through the whole world, whose untarnished and perennial deposit the Roman Church above all preserves, from the debt of the apostolic office committed to us — while we strive to send heralds of the Gospel to the most remote regions — we diligently attend to this care as well: that those who, with the darkness of unbelief dispersed, hasten to the recognition of the true sun of justice who is Christ, be not impeded by any, as far as possible, obstacles of human affairs; and thus the access to the bosom of the Catholic Church from every nation under heaven may be the more frequent for being the more easy. For although it is right that infidels be attracted to receive the faith of Christ not by the inducement of temporal things but rather by the consideration of eternal inheritance — indeed even taught that the chief glory of the Christian consists principally in this, that he despise earthly things, and esteem all things as loss on account of the surpassing knowledge of Jesus Christ our Lord — nevertheless we judge it reasonable and consonant with the institutions of the pious mother Church so to temper our paternal providence toward those who are still as infants in faith, requiring milk rather than solid food, that the more feeble among them not be deterred from the purpose of the Christian religion by the horror of losing their goods and falling into utter miserable poverty; since rather, according to canonical sanctions, those who come to the faith ought to be of better condition after baptism than they were held before they received the faith, and in them also ought to be fulfilled the certain promise of Christ: “Seek first the kingdom of God and his justice, and all these things shall be added to you.”
Confirmation of Paul III’s constitution and extension regarding inheritance
§1. For which reason, many Roman Pontiffs our predecessors, from the power divinely entrusted to them, granted many privileges for the benefit of neophytes in matters pertaining to the favor and propagation of the same holy faith — and with other ordinances added, by which provision would be made both for their protection and for the dignity of the Christian religion and for the easier conversion of infidels at the same time — principally our predecessor Pope Paul III of happy memory published an apostolic constitution in these words: [“Paul III, to perpetual memory…” — incorporating the full text of Paul III’s 1542 constitution Cupientes Iudaeos etc.] …We therefore, lest the memory of so salutary a constitution fail through the length of time, and its observance grow obsolete through anyone’s neglect, or the knowledge of it be suppressed by the deceit of the faith’s enemies from those who wish to convert — by counsel of certain of our venerable brothers the Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church and beloved sons the prelates of the Roman Curia to whom we committed this business for consideration, and also by our own motion, from certain knowledge and mature deliberation, and from the fullness of apostolic power — confirm, approve, and renew the said pre-inserted constitution and all and singular things contained therein, by the tenor of these presents, and ordain and command that it shall be inviolably observed in perpetuity by all to whom it pertains. And at the same time, to remove entirely the shadow of all doubt, explaining more clearly the things established by the said predecessor Paul, and extending them further as need may be, we declare by the tenor of these presents, and also fully establish, decree, and command: that any adventitious goods whatsoever, however they may be reckoned such, belonging to children of families professing the Christian religion, who have been entirely freed by the grace of sacred baptism from the yoke of paternal power to which they were subject under infidel parents, belong by full right to themselves; and that no usufruct or any other right whatsoever over those goods belongs in any way to their said parents, so long as they remain in unbelief; and conversely that those parents and all others whomsoever who would be obligated under any title, even in support, to furnish maintenance or dowry to the converts and their descendants, are equally held and obligated to administer the same maintenance or dowry to them after their conversion.
§3. And since the malice of infidels, and especially of Jews, in their hatred of the Christian name, has been often found to have proceeded to such a point that, concealing or transferring their goods to others, or otherwise disposing of them among the living or by last will and testament, they attempt to defraud their children or other relatives who have converted to the Christian religion of the succession to those goods to which they would have been legitimately admitted on intestacy — therefore we, treading in the steps of our predecessor Gregory XIII of revered memory, who in certain letters of his dated September 13, 1581, pontificate year ten, given under the Fisherman’s Ring, rightly saw fit to provide against this evil, as tending to the detriment of the Christian faith: we by the tenor of these presents, with like motion, knowledge, and fullness of power, sanction, decree, and ordain that any Jews whatsoever, as well as other infidels, cannot in any way alienate, conceal, or diminish their goods and rights to the prejudice of children or other relatives who would otherwise succeed them on intestacy and have received the Christian religion, either among the living or in any last will and testament; but rather are held and obligated to preserve those goods and rights in their entirety (to be delivered immediately after baptism to whomsoever they would otherwise have pertained after their death); and that both those persons themselves and others who hold or occupy said goods may be compelled by appropriate remedies of law and fact to exhibit them or their accounts whenever necessary, and to make a legitimate inventory thereof, and to give surety for their use and enjoyment according to the judgment of a good man; and that in their goods and rights, if they die in unbelief, their children or other relatives as aforesaid who are Christian ought to succeed in exactly the same way and by the same right, notwithstanding any cause of ingratitude or any other however legitimate cause of disinheritance, which, on account of veneration for the baptism subsequently received, we hereby will to be altogether removed.
Renewal of weekly conversion sermons
§5. Moreover, lest while by provident solicitude we procure temporal advantages for converts to the faith we seem to neglect the spiritual gain of souls in converting them — as we do not cease, by instituting sacred missions, to instruct with evangelical preaching other infidels and those who are far off — so also concerning Jews, who live in great number among Christians and are in some manner before our eyes, we think chiefly of procuring their eternal salvation. For great is our sorrow (we say confidently with the Apostle) and there is continual grief in our heart, while with the bowels of paternal love we pity the Israelite nation, once beloved of God, a people whom the Lord chose as his heritage and kept as the apple of his eye; but now (after Jewish perfidy broke out into the highest crime, and the Lord was truly angry in fury against his people, and utterly abominated his heritage) wandering miserably like a flock without a shepherd through every wilderness and waterless place, and destitute of the saving nourishment of the Word of God which alone remains to it — feeding only on the letter, which kills, stripped bare by the Jews — but the spirit, which gives life, not received by those of animal mind. Therefore, for the salutary instruction and attraction of the same Jews to Christ in the truth of the holy faith, all and singular things established wisely by the said predecessor Gregory in other apostolic letters of his, published on the kalends of September, in the year of the Incarnation 1584, pontificate year XIII — whose tenor we wish to be held as expressed in these presents — concerning the sacred readings or sermons to be held for them each week wherever their synagogues may be, we command and enjoin that they be inviolably observed by all to whom they pertain, and wherever they have fallen into desuetude, be recalled to use; specially admonishing all preachers who shall be chosen for this duty, and enjoining them more strictly in the name of the Lord, that they strive to attract the said Jews not by injuries, insults, or excessive verbal harshness, by which they would be hardened the more in Jewish perfidy, but rather by charity and meekness, as the gentle and humble-hearted Christ taught us, gently allure them as straying sheep to the folds of the holy Church, and, with the light of Christian truth laid open especially from the oracles of the ancient scriptures which they venerate, diligently labor to draw the veil from their eyes, that by the working power of almighty God they may be freed from the darkness of Jewish depravity, by which their eyes are blinded so that they do not see.
Protection of neophytes and annual notification to Jews
§6. Finally, we commend to all church prelates and to secular princes as well, by the merciful bowels of our God, all Jews and other infidels whomsoever who shall attain by God’s gift to the grace of baptism, that they cherish them with patronage, assist them with authority, protect them with power, and suffer them not to be unduly vexed in any matter by others, especially by Jews or any infidels; and we exhort and beseech all the faithful of Christ everywhere throughout the world in the name of the only-begotten Son of God and our Savior Jesus Christ, whose place we hold, that they not despise or turn away from those who come from unbelief, especially the poor; but rather let them not fail to cultivate and water these new shoots of the Church with offices and benefits, as each shall be able, and receive them graciously as true brothers in Christ and members of the household of faith, relieve them in their necessities, and show them every manner of Christian charity; so that they may have full joy and exultation in their holy purpose, and in those who are outside and still held in the fog of unbelief the desire to hasten to the bosom of the same holy mother Church may be enkindled.
§9. In order that these present letters may come to the knowledge of all, we enjoin and command all local Ordinaries in whose dioceses any synagogue of Jews or notable number of other infidels may be found, that they cause all the things established and ordained by us, as aforesaid, to be brought to the notice of the said Jews or other infidels annually, once or several times, and in whatever manner shall seem to them most opportune, in the vernacular tongue, and recalled to mind; and so that no one whatsoever can plead ignorance of the same letters, we will that they, or a copy of them, be published and posted at the doors of the Lateran church and the basilica of the Prince of Apostles, and the said Apostolic Chancery, and the Generalis Innocentiana curia, and also in the Campo de’ Fiori of the said City, by one of our cursors, as is the custom.
Given at Rome, at St. Peter’s, in the year of the Lord’s Incarnation 1704, V idus Martii [March 11], pontificate year IV.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, pp. 108–113. Clement XI, Constitution LXI, March 11, 1704. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note. Constitution LXI’s primary purpose is the protection of converted Jews and other neophytes from economic retaliation by their families and former communities — chiefly, ensuring they retain or inherit property notwithstanding their conversion. Paul III’s 1542 constitution (Cupientes Iudaeos) had established that paternal authority over a baptized child of an infidel parent was dissolved by baptism, and that converted relatives succeeded on intestacy despite being excluded from any will. Gregory XIII’s 1581 follow-up prohibited Jews from alienating property to defeat that right of succession. Clement XI here confirms both, adds an explicit declaration on adventitious goods, and renews Gregory XIII’s 1584 mandate for compulsory weekly sermons delivered to Jews in their synagogues.
The provision renewing the compulsory sermons (§5) combines genuine solicitude with the standard polemical framework: the papal text expresses grief for the Israelite nation, formerly beloved of God, now wandering and blind, feeding on the letter rather than the spirit of Scripture. The preachers are explicitly told to use charity and meekness rather than insult or harshness — a direct echo of Gregory XIII’s original mandate, which had specified that the sermons were not to be occasions for humiliation. Whether this instruction was widely followed is doubtful; compulsory attendance at conversion sermons was among the most resented impositions on Jewish communities in the Papal States.
The annual notification requirement (§9) — directing all bishops in dioceses with synagogues to ensure the Jewish community heard these provisions each year in the vernacular — effectively constituted a standing obligation for periodic formal encounters between episcopal authority and Jewish communities, each year reminding them of their subordinate position under canon law.
II. Pope Clement XI — Confirmatur concessio collegii et ecclesiae B.M. in Montibus de Urbe facta presbyteris congregationis Piorum Operariorum: Confirmation of the Concession of the College and Church of the Blessed Mary in the Hills of Rome to the Priests of the Congregation of the Pious Workers, recording the history of the House of Catechumens and College of Neophytes (March 12, 1712)
Constitution CLXIII. Clement XI, year XII. Dated at Rome, at St. Peter’s, under the Fisherman’s Ring, March 12, 1712, pontificate year XII. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, pp. 467–473.
Summary
This constitution is primarily an administrative grant: it confirms the concession of the church of Santa Maria in Montibus in Rome to the Congregation of Pious Workers (Pii Operarii), with associated exemptions from local Ordinary jurisdiction and a grant of specified privileges. The grant is motivated by the congregation’s work with the youth attracted to Christian faith from families of Jews, Muslims, and other non-Christians.
In §1, the document provides an extensive historical narrative tracing the institutional lineage of the House of Catechumens and the College of Neophytes in Rome. This narrative has historical value as a comprehensive summary of two important Roman institutions:
The House of Catechumens was established by Paul III at the church of San Giovanni in Mercatello in Rome, for Hebraei seu Iudaei — Hebrews or Jews — who, divinely inspired, cast off the blindness of their fathers and converted to Christianity, and were washed clean in the saving font of baptism, and reborn to eternal salvation, laying aside the foul leprosy of the old perfidy. The house was governed by a secular clerical confraternity whose rector and twelve priests were chosen every three years, and who were subject to a cardinal protector. This institution housed adults undergoing conversion and those who had recently converted, pending their reintegration into Christian society.
The College of Neophytes was established by Gregory XIII, for the boys and adolescents of Jewish, Turkish, Moorish, and other Muslim origin who converted to Christianity or were at least the children of those who had converted — so that from them might emerge workers suitable for the work of the Gospel, who in Rome itself and in other places in Italy, and indeed in all parts of the world where Jews and other infidels lived, could explain, teach, and preach the mysteries of the Christian faith even in their own language, whether Hebrew or Arabic. The college trained neophyte youths for the priesthood and missionary work, with degrees granted equivalent to those of the University of Rome. Two-thirds of its students were to be from Jewish backgrounds (a iudaismo) and one-third from Muslim backgrounds. Three cardinals served as protectors.
The constitution then grants the church of Santa Maria in Montibus to the Pious Workers congregation as their base for continuing this work — an institution described as shining with miracles of the Blessed Virgin and nurturing the youth washed clean of the darkness of infidel birth, growing in the new light of the orthodox faith.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, pp. 467–473. Clement XI, Constitution CLXIII, March 12, 1712.
Historical note. The House of Catechumens in Rome was one of the most significant — and from the perspective of Jewish communities, most feared — institutions of the Counter-Reformation papacy. Its function was not merely to house voluntary converts: under papal and Roman civic authority, it could receive Jews who had been denounced as willing to convert (including on the testimony of Christian relatives or third parties), or whose children had been baptized without parental consent, or who had any Christian ancestor however distant. Once within its walls, exit without conversion was practically impossible. The institution generated a substantial body of case law about the boundaries of legitimate force in conversion — a subject documented extensively in the legal and rabbinical literature of the period.
The College of Neophytes trained, according to the constitution, missionaries equipped to preach in Hebrew and Arabic. The conversion rhetoric throughout the document is of the standard Counter-Reformation type: Jews are described as casting off blindness, laying aside the leprosy of old perfidy (immunda veteris perfidiae lepra), reborn to eternal salvation. This language is not legislation but the formular of administrative documents relating to conversion; it represents the theological framework within which both institutions operated.
III. Pope Innocent XIII — Confirmatur et innovatur constitutio Clementis VIII prohibens Iudaeis novarum rerum mercaturam: The Constitution of Clement VIII Prohibiting Jews from Trading in New Goods Is Confirmed and Renewed (January 18, 1724)
Constitution XLIV (Innocent XIII section). Innocent XIII, year III. Dated at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, January 18, 1724, pontificate year III. Source: Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, pp. 953–955.
Full summary and translation
Innocent XIII, to perpetual memory of the matter.
From the apostolic service imposed on us from on high, willingly establishing on firmer foundations those things which are known to have been issued by the Roman Pontiff our predecessors in provident counsel to restrain the perfidy and cupidity of the nation of the Jews, always hostile to the Christian name, and providing opportunely in other matters, as we see in the Lord to be salutarily expedient.
§1. For since formerly, as our predecessor Clement VIII of happy memory received word that Jews of certain constitutions — confirming the constitution of our predecessor Paul IV of pious memory, by which among other things it was established that those Jews dwelling in the City and the other cities, lands, and places of the Holy Roman Church, content with the trade of rags and tatters alone (arte strazzariae seu cenciariae, as it is commonly called), were not permitted to carry on any commerce in wheat, barley, or other goods necessary for human use — were perceivably relaxing the observance of the letters issued by our predecessor Pius V of holy memory, particularly in places remote from the City, and by name in the city of Avignon and the county of Venaissin, and bringing them into desuetude: that predecessor Clement, willing that the said letters and constitution be inviolably observed as was right, confirmed them by apostolic authority, and enjoined upon all and singular whom those letters and constitution concerned, under the penalties contained therein, that they observe them and cause them to be observed; and moreover strictly commanded his and the Apostolic See’s legates, vicelegates, governors, officials, and ministers, especially those for the time being in the said city of Avignon and county of Venaissin, that they cause those letters and constitution to be entirely observed in all cities, lands, and places, especially of the said county and Avignon legation; and among other things expressly prohibited the Jews dwelling there from presuming to sell or deal in goods of new things, but only in old things themselves — executing without remission on contravenors the penalties threatened in those letters and constitution — [as the full text of Clement VIII’s constitution, with the incorporated texts of Paul IV and Pius V, here follows].
§2. But since, as we have learned from complaints brought to our apostolate by our beloved sons the merchants of the city of Avignon and the said county of Venaissin, the temerity of Jews dwelling in those parts has so increased that not less in manifest contempt of the pre-inserted letters and the prohibitions and penalties appended to them than to the grave detriment of those merchants, they have recently presumed and still presume to buy and deal in silkworm cocoons (bombycinos folliculos, commonly called cocconi o bocci) from Christians, and to weave silk and make silk cloth: we, wishing to provide for the protection of those merchants and at the same time to restrain the unbridled license of the said Jews, do by apostolic authority approve and confirm the pre-inserted letters of predecessor Clement, and all and singular things contained therein, by the tenor of these presents, and add to them the inviolable strength of apostolic firmness, and renew all and singular those things as needed, and command and enjoin that they be exactly and incontestably observed in perpetuity especially in the cities, lands, and places of the said Avignon legation and county of Venaissin. Furthermore, under the enumerated prohibition of trading in new goods, we by the said authority decree and declare that both the weaving and making of silk of any kind or species whatsoever, and the direct or indirect buying and selling of new silk, whether woven or not, and of silkworm cocoons — which in French are called cocon, in Italian coccone or boccio — are comprehended and understood to be comprehended.
§3. Willing and likewise decreeing by the same authority that these present letters shall always be firm, valid, and effective… [standard canonical clauses].
Given at Rome, at Santa Maria Maggiore, under the Fisherman’s Ring, January 18, 1724, pontificate year III.
Source. Bullarium Romanum, Taurinensis Edition, Vol. XXI, pp. 953–955. Innocent XIII, Constitution XLIV, January 18, 1724. Translated from the Latin.
Historical note: the strazzaria restriction and its economic context. The restriction of Jews in papal territories to the strazzaria — the trade in used and discarded goods — was one of the defining economic disabilities of Jewish life in the Papal States and the papal enclaves of southern France. Its legislative genealogy, summarized in this constitution, runs from Paul IV’s Cum nimis absurdum (1555) through Pius V’s reinforcement through Clement VIII’s 1592 renewal to this confirmation by Innocent XIII in 1724.
The immediate occasion for Innocent XIII’s confirmation was a specific commercial complaint: the Jewish merchants of Avignon and the Comtat Venaissin had expanded into the silk trade — buying silkworm cocoons from Christian producers, weaving silk cloth, and selling finished fabric. This was clearly profitable and apparently longstanding enough that Christian merchants felt it had materially damaged their position. The silk trade was a major industry in Provence and the Rhône valley; the Comtat Venaissin in particular was one of the principal centers of silk production in France. Jewish participation in this trade was evidently substantial enough to prompt formal complaint to Rome.
Innocent XIII’s response is to declare silk — both the raw cocoons and finished cloth — explicitly comprehended within the “new goods” prohibition that the existing constitutions imposed. This is a significant clarification, since the original Paul IV text had specified wheat, barley, and other foodstuffs as the prohibited goods, and the subsequent Pius V and Clement VIII confirmations had spoken more broadly of “new goods” (rerum novarum mercatura). Whether silk had actually been covered previously was apparently a matter of some dispute; Innocent XIII’s constitution settles the question by explicit declaration.
The Comtat Venaissin (comitatus Venayssini) was a papal territory in southern France, surrounding Avignon, that had been under continuous papal sovereignty since the thirteenth century and would remain so until the French annexation of 1791. It was notable for sheltering four communities of Jews — the so-called Juifs du Pape (Papal Jews) in Avignon, Carpentras, Cavaillon, and L’Isle-sur-la-Sorgue — known collectively as the Arba Kehilot (Four Communities). These were among the only Jews permitted to reside in France during the period of their general expulsion, and their presence was directly tied to the economic and fiscal interests of the papal administration. The strazzaria restriction was a chronic grievance in this community, which repeatedly petitioned for its relaxation or abolition.
IV. Incidental references: Unigenitus (1713) and the conversion of Hebrew merchants (1712)
A. The condemned Jansenist proposition (Constitution CXC, 1713)
The Unigenitus bull of Clement XI, one of the most consequential documents of eighteenth-century Catholic history, condemned 101 propositions drawn from the French Jansenist Pasquier Quesnel’s Réflexions morales sur le Nouveau Testament. Proposition LXIII reads:
A baptized person is still under the law like a Jew, if he does not fulfill the law, or fulfills it only out of fear.
This proposition — condemned along with all 101 as respectively heretical, suspicious, ill-sounding, offensive to pious ears, scandalous, pernicious, rash, and injurious to the Church — uses the term iudaeus purely as a theological comparator within a Jansenist argument about the insufficiency of servile fear as a motive for Christian obedience. It is not legislation about Jews. It reflects the standard Reformed and Jansenist typology that contrasted Jewish law-observance (as external, fearful, and salvifically insufficient) with authentic Christian freedom motivated by love — a typology deeply rooted in Pauline theology.
B. The conversion of the archsynagogue (1712)
In a document related to a beatification proceeding concerning a holy man of earlier decades, a hagiographic narrative includes the following passage (§19):
Such and so great was the brilliance of his virtues that, illuminated by the rays of his sanctity, a certain noble Englishman and a duke from across the Alps, and also several Hebrews, freely approached the admirable light of the Gospel and orthodox faith. Among these a certain Elijah, an archsynagogue (archisynagogus) celebrated for wealth and reputation, together with his sons, received the benefit of holy baptism at the Vatican basilica in a solemn rite from the hand of the Pius Pontiff.
This is a conventional hagiographic topos — the conversion of prominent Jews as evidence of the subject’s extraordinary sanctity. The identification of Elijah as an archisynagogus (a communal Jewish leader) and the detail of baptism administered by the pope himself at St. Peter’s in a solemn ceremony reflect the prestige attached to such conversions. No further information about this figure is given. This passage has no legislative significance.
Sources. Unigenitus: Bullarium Romanum, Vol. XXI, p. 575 (prop. LXIII). Archsynagogue passage: ibid., p. 495.